A year ago, when the United States was on the verge of a presidential primary, the neverending call was for Latinos to vote, as a way to excercise the rights of this large minority, especially in regards to immigration reform.

If back then the task of reflecting on the importance of the presidential vote was difficult, this week it’s even harder to raise consciousness about the importance of an election that goes by with barely a blink: the election of judges, controllers and District Attorneys.

Nevertheless, this election should be a crucial one for a Latino community that is barely starting to recover from the injustice committed in a court in Schuylkill County, PA against the undocumented immigrant Luís Ramírez, who died in Shenandoah after being beaten by students who hurled racial epithets at him.

The exoneration of two of them of all the most serious charges – which has led to indignation in the community, and not only among Latinos, is in large part the result of what has been called a poor prosecution on the part of District Attorney James Goodman, so much so that the investigation is now in the hands of the Department of Justice.

Of course it’s not so easy: How do you choose a good District Attorney?

For example, this week not one of the six candidates for District Attorney in Philadelphia County knew the details of the Ramírez case, despite the fact that it’s a case within their line of work that has garnered national attention.

Nonetheless they all made sound judgments about hate crimes against immigrants: “Hate crimes are usually crimes of ignorance,” “Those cases should be highly publicized,” “Every public official should work to protect each member of their community,” “We should make an example of the people who commit these crimes,” “We cannot tolerate when someone is targeted because of their race.”

None of this occurred in the Shenandoah case, just two hours away from Philadelphia. D.A. Goodman was also criticized, of course, by republican Christine A. Holman, who is looking to unseat him in this Tuesday’s election.

The candidate said that in the Ramírez case, “there didn’t seem to be enough evidence presented” and that she “would have personally prosecuted the case instead of handing it off to an assistant the way Goodman did.”

Of course, when it comes to choosing between Goodman and Holman in Schuylkill County, things really get difficult, considering that the candidate thinks the Ramírez case “was a street fight that ended in tragedy.”